State-ordered mandates that facility service providers mark all underground facilities prior to anyone digging or excavating an area represent a costly, time-and-labor-intensive expense. Failure to comply with these mandates within the time allotted for response to any dig or excavation notification may result in significant financial exposure for repairs, lawsuits, and loss of goodwill. Accordingly, it behooves the prudent facility service provider to cooperate with the law and with the myriad of One Call Centers responsible for the in-take of intent to dig notifications, despite the apparent high costs of maintaining field personnel to process thousands, if not millions, of tickets throughout the year.
Most of the utility lines and underground pipes and conduits throughout the United States are buried and it is the responsibility of the utility provider to clearly mark and maintain the whereabouts of all these facilities. However, marking and maintaining a surface marking for each buried facility is neither realistic nor economically feasible. On the other hand, safety for the public is an overriding concern for both state and federal governments—so much so that facility awareness and notification laws have been passed to minimize risk and to protect the general public. These laws mandate utility or service providers having underground facilities to operate and cooperate with excavators and other facility service providers and to maintain these utilities and services in a safe and prudent manner.
To comply with these laws, utility or service providers are required to register and work with a One Call services organization responsible for in-taking all “intend to dig” notices from contractors, excavators and anyone else wishing to dig in areas having buried facilities. Prior to digging, a contractor or homeowner (excavator) calls an “8xx” telephone number and contacts an assigned One Call Center (“OCC”) to report to the OCC its intent to dig within the boundaries of a specific geographic location. The operators at these OCCs take down all relevant information such as the calling party, telephone numbers, location of the property, as well as the exact location of the area within the property that the excavator plans to excavate. The operator then determines on the OCC's maps the exact location of where the planned excavation is to occur. In consultation with other OCC databases, the operator is able to identify the utility service providers that operate buried utilities within the targeted area. A notification is then sent to the corresponding utility service providers via fax, computer or other means of the OCC's receipt of a “notification to dig” (“ND”).
These NDs are received by each of the identified utility service providers and contain data necessary for the utility service providers to take action. In particular, the NDs contain data that identifies the dig site in the form of geocodes, and lot/block numbers, the corresponding street address, excavator identification (commercial and homeowner), depth and purpose of excavation as well as other ancillary data necessary for the utility service provider to assess the existence or non-existence of its facilities within the target area and to assess the potential risks involved in allowing the excavation to proceed. The manner in which each utility service provider handles the processing of the received NDs is variable and in many instances is dependent upon the specific laws in place within the targeted area. For example, some utility service providers may use hard copies of “tickets” (“Tickets”) that for the most part contain the information provided in the NDs, along with other data specific to the utility service provider's methods of processing the NDs. More specifically, some utility service providers provide an associated map with each Ticket generated to first assess whether it will be necessary for field personnel to go to the targeted area and mark the site or to decide that the proposed excavation site is of sufficient distance from their underground facilities that it does not pose a threat. Still other organizations, make it their policy to send field personnel to each targeted area that has buried facilities within the vicinity, just to ensure that an excavator is placed on notice of where each of its buried facilities are located.
In either case, the use of field personnel for utility service providers is a very time-and-labor-intensive activity and generally requires a multitude of field personnel to handle the hundreds, if not thousands, of Tickets generated each year. At AT&T for example, millions of tickets are generated each year to comply with state-mandated verification of its buried facilities, resulting in the expense of millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours. For this very reason, it is no surprise that utility service providers are seeking more efficient and less costly methods of processing Tickets as well as systems that would automatically provide documentation to demonstrate their due diligence in responding to dig notifications and preventing potential outages or disasters.
Accordingly, there is a need for a more efficient system and method of processing Tickets which minimizes processing time, reduces field man-hours and which documents field response activities associated with each Ticket generated.